TEN WORST CORPORATIONS OF '96"

20Dec96 USA: MULTINATIONAL MONITOR MAGAZINE NAMES "TEN WORST CORPORATIONS OF
'96".
(ADVANCE) WASHINGTON-(BUSINESS WIRE)-Dec. 23, 1996-Archer Daniels Midland
(ADM), Caterpillar, Daishowa, Daiwa, Disney, Freeport, Gerber, Mitsubishi,
Seagram's and Texaco are the Ten Worst Corporations of 1996, according to an
article in the December 1996 issue of Multinational Monitor magazine.
Multinational Monitor's ten worst list, now in its ninth year, is designed
to highlight the most egregious acts of corporate crime, violence and other
wrongdoing.
Russell Mokhiber, the author of the article, chastises the Clinton
administration for "failing to confront corporate crime and violence head
on" and for failing to "admit to an ugly reality - corporate crime and
violence inflicts far more damage on society than all street crime combined."
Mokhiber points out that while the FBI reports burglary and robbery combined
cost the nation about $4 billion in 1995, white-collar fraud, generally
committed by educated people of means, costs at least 50 times as much -
$200 billion a year, according to very conservative estimates.
Similarly, while the FBI puts the street homicide rate at about 24,000 a
year, the Labor Department points out that more than twice that number -
56,000 Americans - die every year on the job or from occupational diseases
such as black lung, brown lung, asbestosis and various
occupationally-induced cancers.
The Ten Worst Corporations for 1996 are:
- ADM, for committing price-fixing crimes that cost consumers $500 million;
- Caterpillar, for anti-union practices;
- Daishowa Inc., for clearcutting timber areas in Alberta, Canada, then
suing a citizen group in Canada for trying to bring public attention to the
company's destructive activity;
- Daiwa Bank Ltd., for committing financial crimes that resulted in hundreds
of millions of dollars in customer losses;
- Disney, for hiring sweatshop contractors in the Third World, including
Burma and Haiti, to sew Disney garments;
- Freeport McMoRan, for polluting areas near one of its copper mining sites
in Irian Jaya, Indonesia;
- Gerber, for pressuring Guatemala to exempt baby food products from the
country's tough infant formula law;
- Mitsubishi, for destroying tropical rainforests around the world and for
tolerating widespread sexual harassment at Mitsubishi Motor's Illinois facility;
- Seagram's, for lifting a 48-year-old voluntary ban on broadcast
advertising of distilled spirits;
- Texaco, for mistreating minority employees, and then seeking to destroy
documents to cover up the episode.
Multinational Monitor, founded by consumer advocate Ralph Nader in 1980, is
a monthly magazine that focuses on issues of multinational corporate power.
CONTACT: Multinational Monitor, Washington, D.C. Rob Weissman, 202-387-8030,
or Russell Mokhiber, 202-737-1680.
UNITED STATES
BUSINESS WIRE 20/12/96
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